Police have submitted a “fictitious” charge sheet in Rajshahi University sociology department teacher Prof AKM Shafiul Islam murder accusing 11 people including Jubo Dal leaders and activists.
Although the police filed the charge sheet on November 30, they disclosed the matter to the media yesterday. A Rajshahi court accepted the charge sheet on December 12.
According to the charge sheet, Prof Shafiul was killed over a conflict with the university’s accounts department Section Officer Nasrin Akhter Reshma as he had misbehaved with her. Reshma has already made confessional statement in the case, Rezaus Sadiq, inspector of the detective branch of Rajshahi police, told the Dhaka Tribune.
The investigation officer said he had not found the involvement of banned militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team or members of Jamaat’s student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir with the murder.
However, in an exclusive interview with the Dhaka Tribune, Reshma earlier said that she had never met with Prof Shafiul.
Terming him an atheist, so-called militant group al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent in May this year claimed responsibility for the murder alleging that Prof Shafiul had been an enemy of Islam. They made the same claim on several occasions.
Even the district police earlier claimed that members of Chhatra Shibir were behind the murder. But police’s elite force Rapid Action Battalion suggested that it was an act of Jubo Dal men.
The victim’s only son Soumin Shahrid Javin has rejected the charge sheet. He termed it an “eyewash” by the police. Javin claimed that the police had not contacted him before filing the charge sheet. He learnt about the matter yesterday.
Abdullah Ansari, deputy director of the accounts department, said that there was no point that Reshma had any conflict with Prof Shafiul as she deals with the salaries of the third and fourth class employees.
The accused are district unit Jubo Dal convener Anwar Hossain Uzzal, Abdus Samad Pintu, Ariful Islam Manik, Sirajul Islam, Sobuj, Al Mamun, Arif, Sagor, Jinnat Ali, Ibrahim Khalil and Pintu’s wife Reshma. Of the accused, Uzzal is on the run.
Prof Shafiul was stabbed outside his house located near the campus on November 15 last year and succumbed to his injuries at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital. He used to live in that house alone and was well-known as a secular person and Lalon researcher.
Only hours after the murder, a Facebook page named Ansar Al Islam Bangladesh 2, created by a Chhatra Shibir leader from Bogra, claimed responsibility for the murder. Rejecting the claim, the IO said that it was an effort only to divert the investigation.
After the killing, RU Registrar Entajul Haque filed a case with Matihar police.
RAB arrested Reshma’s husband Pintu and six others on November 23 last year and claimed that Pintu had conducted the murder along with others due to a conflict with his wife.
DB Inspector Rezaus claimed that they had arrested Reshma in March from her relative’s house and later she confessed in the court that they had planned to kill Prof Shafiul following a personal conflict with her.
However, a close relative of Reshma, requesting not to be named, alleged that the law enforcers had threatened her to make such statement.
